In what seemed like a major turning point in the ongoing dispute over Iran’s nuclear program, top Iranian negotiator Said Jalili said the nation had prepared a new offer to resolve the dispute and was ready to hold talks with world powers about it.

Said Jalili

The announcement comes just weeks after Iran announced new nuclear concessions to the International Atomic Energy Agency, and Western diplomats reportedly welcomed the move, though at this point the details of the new offer were not publicly available.

The US, which has officially been trying to get Iran to take part in new talks for months, condemned the new offer as meaningless, however, and accused it of being a plot to try to get China and Russia to oppose a new push for sanctions against them.

The US response, coming before it has even seen what the offer entails, seems primarily based on a deal finalized last week with Israel in which they promised to back “crippling sanctions” against Iran in return for a brief pause in Israel approving new construction projects inside the West Bank.

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